As you’re reading this, I’m sitting in a Suburban with 5 other people heading south to the Ragnar Relay NY. I’ve briefly discussed the relay here and here before. Today I will take the time and explain how this whole things works.

There are 12 runners on our team, the Motley Misfits. All together we will be running approximately 200 miles in relay fashion. We have two suburbans carrying 6 runners each. Vehicle number one leaves from the start line at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts at 8:00 AM today. They will run in order from runner one through runner six. Each switch between runners is called an exchange and these have been carefully planned by the folks at Ragnar. Runner six completes their leg at what is called one of the major exchanges. The major exchanges are where we switch between vehicle one runners and vehicle two runners. At this exchange vehicle two takes over and runs their six legs. This whole process takes place three times for a total of thirty-six legs. You can see a map of our various legs here.

Each runner has different distances to cover in their legs. For this “adventure” I am runner nine. So in the next two days I’ll be covering a total of 18.4 miles. As I’m typing this I’m looking over my legs. This is a good time for me to note that my second leg…. the one that I’ll be starting at 4 AM is a no van support leg. So, I’ll be running in the dark, alone without the help of my van mates. Ugh. Well, I guess this is as good of time as any to find out how “tough” I am.

Anyway, we finish in a big hooooo-rah around 3:30 PM on Saturday. It should be one hell of an adventure. I’m planning to take lots of pictures and have lots of stories so stay tuned! It’s Ragnar time!